“I'm taking a ride with my best friend” - The Last of Us on HBO (2023)

Oh yeah and the fact his plate of food was like four times the size of everyone else’s! Hope there was enough left to barbeque you, prick!

^ yes! meant to mention that earlier, just not even trying to be subtle about taking more than his fair share

Okay wow that was... intense

FINISH THE JOB

Was browsing a forum, and this came up a couple of times, people frankly relieved to have each episode (more or less) resolve itself rather than propel a villain forward by rote.

also i already love the character of Joel & absolutely stan Pedro in all things

but i love how hard Joel goes in this episode, like he’s pushing through a ton of pain clearly to just be upright but he doesn’t halfass anything ever … pedro gave a great performance

ellie the star of this ep of course

especially that final scene, she really bailed the splitsecond tornado of emotions

I'm impressed that each episode has apparently been getting better ratings than the one before it. Proper appointment television.

That is not how you prepare venison!

well that's the show ruined for me

Edit: never mind

lol

venison is the new long pork

"No you see, his name was Ven E. Sonn."

what were all the followers doing while their quaker meeting house was burning down?

Was wondering that. You’d think there be a bunch of people gathering outside, what appears to be, the only restaurant in town

They were all reading Roberts Blossom poetry and cutting each others hair in the style of his author photo

also, via mefi, the actor who played the cannibal cult leader has a history of partner violence, which makes his performance a lot more disturbing in retrospect

Crazy how Joel had the strength to kill off the Fleet Foxes one by one.

newly added to my list of places i never want to end up:

a cage with a tiled floor

In the game a lot of this episode is set during disorienting, white-out blizzard conditions, which lets you be more sneaky. You've also pretty much single-handedly killed all David's armed people by the time you reach him.

Does the game make you torture people for information?

Yes. Or at least it does as a cut scene. The second game requires a greater degree of participation.

I liked it overall and Ramsey in particular, the cage scene in particular was tense and had a lot going on in it. Pretty great performances from both actors.

but some plot stuff felt clunky, like Joel going from semicomatose to ubermensch again on demand, the apparently plentiful deer and and rabbits in the woods around the cannibal cult village, the villain calmly strolling around the burning building. Some details felt a little tossed off in contrast to the strength of the overall narrative and world-building to me. I'm just being picky, nothing major.

That said, I am really going to miss this show after next week! I would have loved two more episodes, but probably smart of them to keep it really lean and leave us wanting more.

xp Whoa, weird. I have of course played lots of games in my life where you blow away tons of enemy NPCs but that seems... different to me somehow?

I wonder if the use of Mortal Kombat in the show is meant as a reference to the fact that the show is based on a game where you similarly just kind of destroy living people's bodies in an intimate way. Not unlike eating them! Wait, in the game do you have to eat anyone? Or is that a spoiler?

Anyway, I am still in the camp of not enjoying this show as much as I thought I would after the first two eps, but I am enjoying it enough to keep watching it!

the apparently plentiful deer and and rabbits in the woods around the cannibal cult village

now that I think about it... maybe showing the availability of deer and rabbits was intentional, the psycho cult leader had developed a preference for cannibalism?

“why wait for a deer to show up when we have all of this meat right here”
~gestures to henchmen~

xxxpost You'd don't eat anyone in the game. But I do think Mortal Kombat was a commentary on violence. I think they referenced it in the podcast, how Ellie is entirely a product of this fucked up world of death and violence. That's really all she's seen and knows. So of course the violence is cool. They also laugh when that corpse they find falls through the floor.

Re: Joel ... antibiotics can be pretty effective! You can feel better in just a couple of hours, probably faster if it's literally injected into the infection site. With David's burning-building behavior, though, in the game at least he thinks he's been infected by Ellie and has nothing to lose. Dunno why they changed it here.

now that I think about it... maybe showing the availability of deer and rabbits was intentional, the psycho cult leader had developed a preference for cannibalism?

I don't get it, I think the human bodies hung up for meat were people who died in other ways (e.g. the guy killed by Joel) not people they intentionally killed for food!

What's the proper wine pairing for human?

https://64.media.tumblr.com/0817dd7cb43dc5d80dcdd3b5fd471cde/e1d75d128dfc608c-48/s540x810/35493fe81b329a9b8c3442f2e840643837806a08.gif

I don't get it, I think the human bodies hung up for meat were people who died in other ways (e.g. the guy killed by Joel) not people they intentionally killed for food!

I guess I thought they set that up in order to establish the circumstances whereby they get their meat people.

Also, what was David's endgame for spring? Like, the crocuses are out, the birds are singing, the kid is like "can we bury Dad now" and David is going to be like.. "Sorry kid I forgot where we put him"??

I think the chief creep and his lieutenants were out there intentionally killing people for food in addition to eating Dad and others who die from their own clan, while keeping it a semi-secret from his sheep. They tried to kill Joel right away at the University. I got the impression the bodies they were bleeding out were from others they'd found and killed for food.

There’s no necessity for his actions, he’s a predator that is thriving in this exactly the same as the fungus. They are not eating people out of pure need!

The way he tucked into that big ol' plate did suggest he was pretty into it.

and he was definitely trying to serve up some Dad to Ellie.

And of course he had the biggest portion.

I got the impression the bodies they were bleeding out

those stew chunks looked pretty bloody, pretty fresh

One detail that was really chilling was when David stopped screaming while Ellie was hacking away at him.

it seemed fairly clear to me that at least some of the group were at least suspicious about the source of the meat, cue the one woman's doubtful face when they guy told her it was venison. unclear just how "secret" the cannibalism was to the general population of that town.

i was kind of annoyed they just left the dead deer lying around

eat the irl venison you craven dicks

gotta eat the other stuff before it goes bad.

well then at least clean and hang up the deer, ffs!

EXACTLY

David, the floor is not a meat locker

“how about instead of grooming teen girls you go and dress this fuckin DEER that’s lying around HMMM”

this is how accidents happen, David.